Spain and Norway are the new European champions!

Last day of the European Championship was full of emotions, great actions on the courts and celebrations at the end of the day. Spain in the men´s and Norway in the women’s event won the European crown, while the men’s team Croatia and the women’s team Spain won the bronze medal.

Spanish men’s team is the new European champion. They beat Russia in a tense and excited match (22:27, 26:28). Spanish player David Mendoza Gomez was extremely happy like the whole team: „We were fighting during the whole competition and our opponents were great players with specific skills on the sand. All the teams were really good. Vamos Espana!“.

In the women’s final match, Norway was better than Poland (15:16, 16:19) and topped the podium. Norwegian player Martine Welfler told: „It was a tough game, we believed in ourselves and we did it. This is crazy and I don’t understand our success yet, but our feelings are great.”

Croatian men’s team missed the opportunity to win the fifth European crown in a row, but they won a bronze medal in the match between Hungary (14:8, 24:23). That victory, put Croatian players in the top of beach handball again. Ivan Dumenčić scored the decisive goal in the last seconds of the second set and said:”I am happy, our defense was amazing in the first set. We scored the goal in the last minute and the medal is here“.

In the women’s match for the third place, Spain beat Denmark after the shoot-out (10:15, 20:14, 2:5). Silvia Llardo Fernandez was highly satisfied: „We were preparing for the hard game and shoot-out. My emotions are mixed now, but the most important is our gold medal“.

Members of the All-star team in the men’s event are goalkeeper Anton Zabolotskyi from Russia, top scorer is Igor Kopyshynskyi from Ukraine and the most valuable player is Hungarian Andras John. Team Germany won the prize fort the Fair Play Team.

In the women’s event, the most valuable player is a Norwegian Maren Aardahl, the best goalkeeper is Danish Sandra Mittet and top scorer is player of the Netherlands Eefke ter Sluis. Team Italy won the Fair play award.